Friday, October 31, 2008

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Word of the day.

I was talking to my mother earlier. She went to the horse races at Leopardstown yesterday and was telling me about her day. At one point she was talking about the cold weather and, having attemptd to describe the wind, she corrected herself by saying: 'if that's not a moxy-oron'.

I think moxy-oron is my new favourite word.

Perhaps when I call her again next month she'll have another new word for me!

I had no idea

All this technology and information is all well and good but how come I can't remember my phone number or the PIN code for my Laser card? Will all of this make us any smarter? I'm saying probably not.

What's in Al Green's bag?

I went to see Al Green in Vicar Street on Sunday night. I'd never seen him before and I've got to say that it was a very surreal experience. He's great, of course, but there's so much showbiz onstage that sometimes you just wish he'd just sing the damn songs.. And he has a really strange habit of smiling and waving during the songs. So he's singing something heartbreaking like 'How Can You Mend a Broken Heart' and stopping mid verse to wave and flash his pearly-white gnashers. Bizarre. Although in fairness everyone was lapping it up so Al clearly knows what he's doing. Wish he'd done more from his new album though. I'm thinking it's one of the year's best records.

Anyway at the end of the gig (no encore from Al, by the way, and no Take Me to the River either) Al threw out the last of his roses to the ladies in the audience, smiled his dazzling smile one more time and picked up a black shoulder bag and left the stage. My question: what's in Al green's shoulder bag? Is he one of those old guys who insists on being paid for cash before going on stage or was he going straight to the gym afterwards? Maybe he'd come to the venue straight from the airport and hadn't been to the hotel.. I'd love to know..

I hate old people

Went down to the Science Gallery in Trinity College on Friday night to take part in their 'PAY ATTENTION' event. The Gallery is one of my favourite new places to go at the moment. They had a brilliant Robots exhibition a few weeks ago and now they're running a series of events where members of the public call in and take part in Brain research.. There's a series of tests to determine why we think the way we do, why we forget things as soon as we've been told them, whether we're morning or evening people and lots of other stuff..

Anyway, I took a test to determine my attitudes towards old people and it turns out that I have a strong bias against them! The tests involved placing words into various categories. So I started out with words like mature & teen and categories like 'old' & 'young'. Easy enough, right? Then it got a bit more complicated as words like ugly, peace, love and anger were introduced and needed to be categorised as well. It's all fairly rapid so you don't really have time to think about what you're doing. I guess that's how they tap into our subconscious. I'm not sure it wasn't entrapment!

At the end they added up my results and told me that I have a strong bias towards old people. The chap doing the tests reminded me that I'm not a bad person (thanks!) but I've been conditioned to think that old is worse than young. He said that it's not necessarily my fault (tv, advertisers etc etc) and there's nothing I could do about it. But then he told me that in future I should bear it in mind. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to do that.. Saying that, given that I recently moved into the 35-54 category whenever I'm ticking my age in application forms, it's probably likely that my bias against old people will correct itself naturally!

Friday, October 24, 2008

A literally literary evening

To the Button Factory on Monday night for a poetry reading. That’s right - a poetry reading. Felix Dennis, publishing millionaire, raconteur, establishment riler, the first person to use the rudest word in the English language on tv, reformed(ish) hell-raiser and, in recent years, critically lauded poet was in town for a date on his ‘Did I Mention the Free Food and Wine’ tour.

I’ve never been too sure about poetry. I’ve got some of Roger McGough’s books at home. He’s good. And Paul Durcan too, although that’s a little harder to get my head around. And I’ve always enjoyed Ian McMillan whenever he’s guested on Mark Radcliffe’s radio show. I even bought one of his books (Ideas Have Legs) once but that was because of the pictures as much as the words. I suppose the idea of a poetry reading has always conjured up images of men in tweed jackets, stroking their beards and nodding in agreement with whatever pearl of wisdom was being rhymed out in front of them. Exactly my kind of scene, in other words!

Felix Dennis
first came to my attention in one of the first issues of The Word magazine. Possibly the very first actually. Anyway, he was interviewed for one of their ‘Word to the Wise’ features and I thought he sounded like a great old punter. Opinionated, boozy, outrageous and not afraid to show off a more sensitive or introspective side to his character. Not afraid of ridicule either which, I think, is one of the better personality traits to have.. I remember visiting his website and reading some of his poetry at the time and liking them. They were a bit salty and lusty and used big words and swear words. Racy stuff. Never bought any of his books though.

So on Monday night he was in town for his gig in the spruced up Button Factory. Here’s how his poetry readings go: you get inside and there’s loads of fine French wines laid out for your pleasure. Large glasses filled not quite to the brim - but close enough.. Waiter types roam around the place with tasty canapes. The usual stuff - things on cocktails sticks, little salmon nibbly things. Lovely stuff. So for an hour or so we stood around eating and drinking and stroking our beards waiting for the show to begin. And then we took our seats. And then, after a ridiculous, over the top intro from one of Felix' little runners, it began.

What was it like? Well, good - I think. What makes poetry good or bad? Several glasses of red wine make everything good so that helps, I suppose. What else though? Are we supposed to appreciate the meter (metre?) of the poems? He talked a lot about free verse and structured verse but I don’t know what all that means. Are we supposed to appreciate the ones that rhyme more than the others? Or is poetry that rhymes inferior to the other kind? I’ve got no idea. In the end it came down to just liking the subjects he was reading about, I suppose. So I really liked the ones about his family, himself, his relationships etc, and the ones about business, politicans and war I didn’t enjoy as much. I laughed at the funny ones and pondered the reflective ones and the rest of the time I just let it wash over me.

I loved the performance though. For some poems he stood at a lectern and, as he read, plasma screens displayed images and movies with the words of the poem at the top. Actually the words were usually displayed a line after he spoke it. So you couldn’t read along I suppose. Anyway when he wasn’t standing at the lectern, he came out and read the poems as he walked along the stage. I guess he was a bit more physical and theatrical for these ones. A short hairy bear of a man with a large belly and a bright yellow waistcoat. I don’t really know what the motivation for the different presentation styles was but I suppose it broke things up a bit.

If I was to criticise the event though I’d say that the interval knocked a bit of momentum out of the occasion (that’s if you can have momentum at a poetry reading). By the time the second half began, it’s probably true to say that some of the audience had had a little too much free wine. Quite often, as Felix would begin to introduce a poem, various audience members started to heckle him. Seriously, who heckles at a poetry reading? Maybe it happens all the time. This was my first one though and I was a little shocked to think that people could behave that way. Ok - so he was talking about legalising drugs and other ‘shocking’ things like that but still.. I mean the event was ticketed - you couldn’t just walk in off the street so presumably most people there knew what he was like. Either way, all of the shouting was a little cringey. His response to most heckles was to ignore them. It worked most of the time apart from one chap in the front row who seemed to bear some kind of grudge. In the end he got up and walked out shouting about something or other being disgraceful. Perhaps he didn’t get enough of the canapes.

In the end I’d almost say that he almost outstayed his welcome. Harsh perhaps, given his hospitality, but I guess there’s such a thing as too much poetry. Although he finished his encore (an encore at a poetry reading!) with a nice little poem about how, despite what a lot of newspapers and tv shows tell us, everything will be better again. Easy for him to say I suppose but a nice sentiment to end on. And then he jumped in his Bentley which drove him to his helicopter which flew him back to his mansion in Warwickshire. I daresay he was in bed before we got to the pub. But that's ok - if I was a millionaire with a fondness for publishing my own poetry, I'd like to think I'd be doing the same sort of thing. Spend a bit of money to get an audience in and then make them listen to your work.

I bought his latest book, Homeless in my Heart for 15 quid. All the proceeds go to his charity and I thought it was a decent night’s entertainment for 15 bob. And it's a good book - I've looked at it a bit since Monday and am enjoying it very much.

Here's my current favourite Felix Dennis poem. I pinched it from his site and I'm posting it here because, as he said the other night, there's nothing he can do to stop me. And because it's great.

Snakeskin Boots

I remember the hill and the sun in her hair,
I remember the moss on a tombstone seat,
With the grass as tall as a mad march hare.
I remember she kicked the shoes off her feet.

I remember her calling me 'daft as a brush',
And the taste of the orange she helped to peel.
I remember she mocked my feeble moustache
And my snakeskin boots with their Cuban heel.

I remember the lids of her eyes as we kissed,
I remember the shock of a gentle slap
As she hissed 'Not here!' and circled my wrist
When I fumbled the catch of her brassiere strap.

I remember it rained as we raced for a fuck
To my room. I remember we tore off our clothes -
Except for my boot where the zip had stuck!
And her poached-egg breasts, I remember those.

I remember we tumbled both half insane
On the bed, and the arch of her back as I came.
I remember we did it again and again,
And we screamed...
...but I cannot remember her name.

What's wrong with this picture?

Not much, actually.

I popped down to the local multiplex the other night to see Burn After Reading, the Coen Brothers' latest, and much anticipated, film. Despite all the praise they get, I've never really been able to love a lot of their films - particularly their recent work. I really liked Fargo and No Country For Old Men, obviously, which was great and deserved all the awards and acclaim that it received earlier this year. Of course, No Country was an adaptation of a novel so perhaps that explains why it had a narrative that managed to stay the course without disappearing up the sort of blind alleys that were so evident in the likes of Intolerable Cruelty, O Brother Where Art Thou and The Man Who Wasn't There. And I know everybody loves The Big Lebowski but I just found it a bit tedious after a while.

Anyway, it's been odd reading the reviews of Burn after Reading. Apart from one or two that suggested that the Coens are treading water at the moment, the reviews have been mostly negative. I don't get it. I suppose there's a certain smugness about the film. Everyone involved seem rather pleased with themselves. George Clooney and Brad Pitt both get to act like a pair of idiots and Frances McDormand and John Malkovich are given the chance to play unlikeable characters and swear a lot. There's a lot of swearing in Burn After Reading but swearing's ok, isn't it?

The plot? Well this may be the problem.. Essentially it's a good old-fashioned espionage/blackmail/revenge thriller. It's got spies behaving like fools and fools trying to behave like spies. There's lots of infidelity and casual sex. There's lots of loneliness and pathos too as everything spirals out of control. It starts with John Malkovich's character, Osbourne Cox, getting fired by the CIA. He feels he (literally) has an axe to grind so he decides to write a tell-all memoir about the Agency. However, the disc he's saved it onto falls into the hands of a pair of gym trainers, Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand, who cluelessly attempt to blackmail him. When that fails, they decide to take it to the Russians. And then it all kicks off. George Clooney gurns and mumbles away humorously (or annoyingly, depending on your mood) as an adulterous, paranoid Treasury Agent who's having an affair with Tilda Swinton. She's married to Malkovich's character but not for much longer.. You'll also find Richard Jenkins in there as the owner of the gym, Hardbodies, that Brad and Frances work in.

I suppose it's all very slight, yet quite complicated at the same time but it's funny. And shocking. And a little violent too. And it zips along and is done in a little over 90 minutes. So what's not to love? Even if it doesn't make sense to you there's a couple of great cameos from JK Simmons (him out of Spiderman) and David Rasche (him out of Sledgehammer) as clueless CIA bosses trying to figure out all the chaos that's going on round them. They pop up once or twice to explain to themselves (and the audience) what's going on. The film ends with the two of them summarising what's just happened and I reckon it's probably the funniest couple of minutes I'll see in the cinema this year. Funnier than anything in Tropic Thunder anyway

So, it's funny, exciting, violent (but not too violent) and has a great cast. So why have the critics almost unanimously taken a shovel to it? Perhaps because it's not Fargo or No Country For Old Men. Fair enough but what else is? It's still very good and, make no mistake, if this was directed by anyone else it would be hailed as one of the year's best..

And I haven't even mentioned what George Clooney spends most of the film building in his basement!

Friday, October 17, 2008

Seemed like a good idea at the time


This is possibly the worst product-celebrity tie-in I've ever come across. Spotted on this thread over at The Word..Hindsight is everything I suppose..

Breaking up is easy to do

I spotted this fantastic business card for a divorce lawyer on The Serif.. It's such a simple, funny idea that I'm pinching it and putting it here. I love a nice perforation!

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

This is a low.

More great work from Montrose..

I was watching RTE's Nine News last night but didn't want to post until I could find the clip. I think it's probably fair to say that RTE news has been lowering the bar gradually over the last few years. If it's not Charlie Bird doing everything he can to make himself bigger than whatever story he's covering, it's George Lee standing outside Dail Éireann repeating what the newsreader has just told us and adding nothing to the story. I'm not saying these guys aren't talented journalists (I'm not saying they are either) but someone in the RTE News Department seems to have mistaken having someone talking outside an important building with actual news.

And then there's the gimmicks. They love a good gimmick. Which leads us to last night's fiasco. David Murphy, RTE's Business Correspondent was reporting on the weekend's meeting in Paris of EU leaders trying to get to grips with the financial crisis. The report was fine - essentially Murphy was speaking over footage of leaders
announcing various rescue solutions and the markets taking a turn in the right direction. Then we cut to Murphy in a dark room holding a wad of notes and a wallet. He told us that with oil prices falling and interest rates going down, there might be good news for all of us. However as he speculated that today's budget might see us lose out again, a mysterious hand appeared from nowhere and took 50 quid from his wallet. Murphy finished the report by with a comical glance in the direction of the thieving hand.. And went home and cried. Possibly.

You can watch it here. It's the third item on the list and comes right at the end of the report.

Really, can they not just give us the news and leave the fun stuff for the kids? I'm sure we can all take it.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Raw. What is it good for?

..Absolutely nothing.

I'm watching the last episode of Raw, RTE's big-budget, big-balled series set in a Dublin restaurant. I've dipped in and out of it and while it's rather watchable, it's completely forgettable and just plain unbelievable. I've known a few chef types in my time and although the cliched image of stressed out boys and girls boozing and snorting seems to have more than a sliver of truth to it, these guys are off the scale.

Here's a quick review of Raw:

Sex! Pills! Egos! Lesbians! Booze! Shouting! Coke! Cheating! Gays! FULL FRONTAL GAYS!! More sex!. Oh - and lots of shots of people chopping veg and shouting orders. Because someone's seen that on Hells Kitchen.

And there's been some really bizarre music choices. I don't know how they come up with it. It's not that the music's bad - it's just that it doesn't work. This week's episode which was all about a wedding in the restaurant. There's just been a scene on the dancefloor with the guests slow-dancing to Leonard Cohen's 'A Thousand Kisses Deep'. It's a great song (listen to it here and try to dance to it) but I can't imagine any song less likely to be played at a wedding.. Before it ended, the DJ interrupted it to play Beyonce's Crazy in Love, which is obviously a huge improvement for a dancefloor but, again, can you imagine any 2 songs less likely to sit side by side in any DJ's imagination? Such a bizarre choice.

Oh - and there's a character in the show called 'Tiny'. He's played by a huge bouncer/comedian/actor character that works the door at the Dice Bar. Anyway, Tiny doesn't speak in the show, It's a funny quirk the writer's have given him. Except it's not very funny is it? And now he's just spoken. So the conceit really serves no purpose. He won a bet with a colleague which gave the writers a chance to let him speak. And what are his only words in the entire series? "I told you so". You see it's really funny cos, in fact, he never told anyone anything. Ooh - they must've been pleased with that one. That's not very good really is it? I mean they're trying to be clever and all but, well..

Look - Raw hasn't been rubbish. It looked great and the Dublin exteriors were great. Most of it was shot around Camden Street and it's nice to see that neighbourhood all scrubbed up for tht tv. But it they're going to go to all that trouble, wouldn't you think they'd spend a bit more time on the old scripts? And a little less time cooking up a few old cliches for us to swallow.

RTE have probably already commissioned a second series.

Don't ask..

I walked in to the door again..